In the context of the invention, “containers” are in particular cans, bottles, tubes and pouches made from metal, glass and/or plastic, but also other packaging means which are suitable for example for filling with liquid or viscous products.
Conveying devices or conveyors for conveying containers, comprising a plurality of conveyor belts which are driven in rotation and each form a closed loop, particularly also in the form of conveyor chains or slat-band chains, are known. The conveyor belts each form with their upper length, which is supported against at least one sliding guide, the common horizontal or substantially horizontal conveying plane or conveying surface on which the containers stand with their container bottom or their standing bottom.
It is also known that the conveyor belts cannot be embodied in just any length since, if the length were too great, the friction forces occurring between the respective conveyor belt and the sliding guide would exceed the maximum tensile strength of the conveyor belts, particularly also during constant operation of the conveying device. For this reason it is customary, particularly in the case of conveyors of relatively great length, to provide a plurality of conveyor belts adjoining one another in the conveying direction, which then also results in the possibility of improved control and/or regulation of the power and/or conveying speed of the conveyor belts, for example due to a separate drive for each conveyor belt or for a group of conveyor belts. However, conveyors of this type then inevitably have transitions between the conveyor belts adjoining one another in the conveying direction. The gaps formed at these transitions are usually bridged on the conveying surface by transfer elements or container sliding elements, for example in the form of sliding plates. Nevertheless, these transitions are a disturbance on the conveying surface, i.e. the containers stand only incompletely on the upper lengths of the conveyor belts when passing such transitions, namely inter alia with the disadvantage that, when a conveyor or a system comprising said conveyor is being cleared, for example in the event of a product changeover, i.e. when changing the system from containers of one type to containers of a different type and/or from a product of one type to a product of a different type, the containers remain on the transfer elements or container sliding elements and manual interventions are required in order to remove these containers.
If the transfer elements or sliding elements are omitted, there is an increased risk of undesirable disruptions to the production process, particularly due to containers falling over.